1. Technical Field
The present invention pertains to the field of industrial control automation. More particularly, the present invention pertains to managing the custom applications for an industrial control system over a wide area network such as the Internet, the managing including for example keeping track of the latest version of each application, and configuration management generally, and backing up and restoring the applications.
2. Description of Related Art
The operator of an industrial control system (ICS) often employs an outside automation specialist to develop what are called the applications for the intelligent devices of the ICS; the ICS operator often knows what the ICS must do, but does not know how to program the intelligent devices, i.e. to develop the applications for the intelligent devices, to do what must be done.
Since the applications that automate an ICS evolve from earlier versions to later versions, and on occasion it is necessary to refer back to an earlier version, there is a need to keep copies of each version of each application, noting the changes from version to version, and to be able to reconfigure an intelligent device so as to use an earlier version. Such configuration management also allows restoring an application in case of equipment malfunction causing the loss of an application. But the operator of an ICS is often only slightly better equipped to handle configuration management of the ICS than to develop applications for the ICS.
Thus, there is often a need for outside automation specialists to provide configuration management for an ICS. But providing configuration management service on site is significantly more expensive than providing such a service remotely, over a wide area network such as the Internet.
Accordingly, what is needed is a system for providing over a wide area network, such as the Internet, configuration management of the applications of an ICS, including restoring a configuration when needed, such as in case of equipment malfunction.
Accordingly, the present invention provides a system for providing remote configuration management for an industrial control system (ICS) over a wide area network, such as the Internet, the configuration management including keeping track of each application used by each device of the ICS. The system includes: a) a configuration database, responsive to updates on which devices are in use by the ICS and to which versions of which applications are used by each device, and further responsive to which applications on which devices constitute each past configuration about which update information has been made and also to the present configuration of the ICS, for providing copies of each version of each application for which an update has been made; a remote sensing module, responsive to information stored in the configuration database, for providing over the wide area network to the ICS devices queries as to the identity of the ICS devices and as to the application identifier and version number of at least some applications used by at least some of the devices, and responsive to corresponding application information provided over the wide area network by the at least some devices and for storing the corresponding application information in the configuration database; a configuration manager, responsive to the corresponding application information in the configuration database, for obtaining over the wide area network backup copies of the current version of at least some of the applications on at least some of the devices, and responsive to restore commands, for providing over the wide area network a restored copy of an application based on either an application identifier and version number or based on a configuration identifier; and utilities for enabling communication over a wide area network.
In a further aspect of the invention, the restore commands issued to the configuration manager are provided over the wide area network directly from an ICS operator at the ICS.
In another, further aspect of the invention, the wide area network is the Internet, and the system also includes a browser for providing communication over the Internet.
In yet another, further aspect of the invention, the configuration manager also provides information about a service it performs, and the system also includes a billing manager, responsive to the information about the service performed by the configuration manager, for making a record of the service performed by the configuration manager; and in a further aspect of the invention, the information about the service performed by the configuration manager includes the type of service and the total size (in e.g. kbytes) of all of the applications to which the service is directed.